R2I 2025 April

[RBee]

wd40, if you had PR of Singapore, would you still have returned?

[wd40]

wd40, if you had PR of Singapore, would you still have returned?

Since I have a daughter and Singapore is a absolute safe country for women, I would have tried to keep the PR and even get citizenship for her so that she has this option to work and live here as an adult. My wife also would have probably loved to continue staying here. Since Singapore is so near to Bangalore, I would have probably moved to India alone for couple of year and doing to and fro for some time to take care of my parents.

But without PR and citizenship, there is no confusion or dilemma. There are some Indians who get into Singapore top universities even though they are not PR, but they score 96-98% in their 12th std. After that once they come out of university, there is no concept of placement like in India, so if they don't find a job, I don't know what they do, maybe they just go back to India or some other countries.

But if we have PR in Singapore, no matter what my daughter scores in 12th, she can do a degree anywhere in the world including India and still come back to Singapore and find a job.

So you see not having PR and no clear path of getting PR means the uncertainty is just crazy and I don't want my daughter to live with that.

Instead I move to India now when she is going to 8th. She has a strong base in India of 10 years including college. After that based on her ability/skills she can choose her own path. Atleast we have decent money to support her in India without putting pressure on her on choosing any specific path.

[SAPPORO]

I posted the below in a Singapore forum, posting it here too, sorry if some of the terms sound alien, as they are from a Singapore context:

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I just came back from a vacation to India and most people ask me why do I want to leave Singapore, it is difficult to explain to them. I tell them Singapore is a great place to live and work and raise a family. Then what is the reason I want to leave on my own accord?

I do quite a poor job in explaining my reasons but here they are:
1) No PR in Singapore, so it is just a matter of leaving now vs leaving in another 5, 10 or even 15 years. If the end goal is to leave Singapore, then I might as well do it now and look forward to something new.
2) The main reason I came to Singapore was for the geographical arbitrage, higher savings potential in Singapore, which I have made the most of. Continuing to live here I will save more money, but I am unlikely to spend it.
So those are my reasons, sorry for the long rant

One of my friend asked when so many Indians are trying to get out why are you going back? I asked him to count how many guys in their 50s/60s are trying to get out of India. He went silent and got the point.

People who are getting out of India are in their 20s/30s. You will not find many in our age (close to retirement) getting out. I will never do if I knew how expensive the phoren lands are. It is a different matter for millionaires who want to escape tax regime but they mostly go to UAE. West is also a highly taxed region with higher CoL - it is a double whammy. Many immigrants in Canada are discovering this reality. It does not make financial sense, only for bragging rights rich go out.

Not just out of India, people don't generally move out of any country including the US in their 50s and 60s unless they are adventurous.

[wd40]

I will keep going back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When we are young and networth is close to zero, you top priority is building wealth.

It was not that I didn't like Bangalore when I was in my late 20s. In fact l loved driving my new car and exploring places. My parents already had a house in Bangalore and we were living with them. I lived like a king, no expenses. Only expenses were eating out and my car fuel. My parents took care of everything else. I was saving 90% of my salary. So there was absolutely no need for me to leave Bangalore and I know many people like that who are absolutely happy there who never went abroad, inspite of opportunities. It is most people from villages who don't have a house in Bangalore and come and rent over there struggle and then they desperately go onsite. The natives of Bangalore don't do that. When I see my colleagues here in Singapore, none of them are from Bangalore. Most are from villages in North India and they struggle to even go there for vacation. Flight and then a cab ride of few hours.

But anyways, when I got the opportunity to come to Singapore, it was mainly because my job in Bangalore sucked, it was 2009 GFC and I thought let me try something new and the extra money saving was the icing on the cake and I will try it for couple of years and then come back. This was the plan.

When I came to Singapore, initially I hated it, I thought I came to 3rd world country, since people were using the train and cars were super expensive. Even the flats in my budget were like old and govt flats. So I immediately felt the big downgrade in lifestyle. But I was clear, I am here for saving money. It is over a period of time I got used to this lifestyle and took solace about the non tangibles like clean air, water and blah blah blah.

So coming back to the Maslows hierarchy, fast forward 16 years and now none of those initial conditions were true. I had already made enough wealth, so there is no need for me to continue this lifestyle. If I upgrade my lifestyle in Singapore, then it won't be worth staying here anymore. Also getting used to the good life here means it makes it extremely difficult to go back to India and eventually live there. We are Indians after all and India is the only place we can live.

Then, I realise basically we are just 3 if us here husband wife and daughter and life is great. But this is not life, this is fake bubble. Real life is when you interact with extended family members and be part of their life events and they are part of our life events.

We have reached that perfect stage now, where nothing is lost, no time is lost, we can go back to India and make up for the lost time there. Whatever time we spent here is mostly about making money. None of this matters.

[wd40]

As @Sapporo called me poetic and professorial, to do justice to my new title, here you go:)

I look at my Singapore stint as a derivatives position long Singapore, short India. If you think about it, moving to another country means you are taking whatever the new country is giving you and you are giving up whatever the country which you have left, could have given you if you were there.

So this position eventually needs to be closed and when you close it, determines, what the total PnL is. Currently, this position is 16 years old and I have gained so much from it. But carrying on this position is not going to be much more profitable for me, compared to what I have already achieved.

Hence, the time to unwind the position has come. The sell to close order has been placed and it is 25th of May Flights are booked. My daughter's school orientation is 27th of May and school reopening is 2nd Jun. So I am using as the guiding timeline for our move. I have already verbally informed my manager, official notice will be given on 1st of May, if I resign earlier, I will lose my bonus, which is not a lot, about 10K USD worth. But why lose it. So the actual notice period is short of the required 1 month, by a few days. I have leaves, so hopefully they will get adjusted.

Next I have to give notice to my landlord. Since we have a fully furnished house, there is not much stuff to ship. We lived in Singapore, as if we will go back anytime, so we didnt accumulate stuff atall. We have 30kg per person luggage allowance on the Indigo flight, so total 90kg, more than enough to carry our clothes and some kitchen utensils. My wife wants to carry her sewing machine, mixer grinder and a juicer. My daughter's piano cannot be carried unfortunately, but is a cheap one. My daughter's skating shoes will be carried, although I wonder where will she be able to skate in Bangalore

My dad told me last week that the upper floor of my dad's house tenant has vacated. It is being painted now. So we are all set, we will initially live in the ground floor and slowly setup the new house, buying furniture etc in the upper floor. My entire focus and energy after the move, will be to settle in smoothly and I have no immediate plans to go to work. I am most likely not even be able to find employment given my skills. So, that way I am likely to stay, comfortably unemployed

[fire_india]

I stay in Bangalore as well.
Let us catch up when you are here man!

Welcome home!

[SAPPORO]

@wd40, You're back to your practical self! Congrats!
IIRC, you must be around 45 and so have a plan for extended FIREd existence.

[wd40]

@wd40, You're back to your practical self! Congrats!
IIRC, you must be around 45 and so have a plan for extended FIREd existence.

The plan is to have no plan, for a change. I watched a really nice video on YouTube.



There is a good chance that I will get bored quickly. I want to get bored and then I want to figure out things on what I like to do, what I want to do and what I am willing to do.

Atleast the major factor that was forcing me to go to work, until now, i.e. money is now taken out of the equation and now that leaves a vacuum. I want to experience that vacuum and see what I will do after that.

I don't dread it, I know many people dread even normal retirement. I don't understand what is there to dread. Worst thing is you get bored and you start preparing again to go back to work and that preparing phase can go on for as long as we want.

Some rough ideas I have on what I will do:
I will try to get into the kitchen and do some cooking, not the typical Indian cooking, but try some healthy stuff like salads etc
I will try to learn to explore some local business ideas. Not that I jump head on into it but just try to learn the different economics of doing business and how it works.
I might take up a masters degree.

[Razz R]

I stay in Bangalore as well.
Let us catch up when you are here man!

Welcome home!

happy to see you guys have buried the hatchet and become bff's

[RBee]

Congrats and Shubhasya sheeghram (God speed)
Share picture of FI and yours if you had filter coffee together and rode together in FI’s 3 crores car j/k

OTOH, wd40 means you are 40 years old to me. Sapji says you are around 45.
Who is right?
If you are 40, 40 is too early to retire. I am 47 about to turn 48 and I have no plans to retire till I am 55 (that’s when DH turns 60)..